


A History Of Palaven: An Empire Dies and Another Begins

by VigilantSycamore



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I promise, I'll Try To Make It Interesting, It's Set Millenia In The Past, Lots of OCs - Freeform, Medieval Palaven, OCs - Freeform, Ratings may change, Really Nothing But OCs, Turian History
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-03-23 03:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13778511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilantSycamore/pseuds/VigilantSycamore
Summary: In the 22nd Century, the Turian Hierarchy is one of the dominant powers of the Milky Way, a meritocratic empire with a strong collective mentality. But how did it get this way? Well, the story begins with a minor city state in an empire on medieval Palaven - this is the story of how that one city rose to power and earned its place in turian history.





	1. Introduction to the Empire

**History: Overview of the Tal peninsula**

Before the turian Age of Discovery, the turian species was confined to a single continent on Palaven – the continent of Nengjra, meaning “great land” in an ancient language. Along the eastern coast of Nengjra is the _gbadopsar Talngje_ , or the Talngje peninsula, named after the Tal, the peninsula’s dominant ethnic group at the time.

Talngje civilisation began due to trade with the Iphtangyl and Mbetsi people. Warring city-states were conquered by the city of Arunnash, beginning the Arunnashngje Empire.

At its peak, the Arunnashngje Empire controlled half of the known world at the time. Eventually, the empire fragmented due to rising regionalism and decentralisation of power. This continued until the Arunnashngje Empire only held the southern part of the peninsula, with the northern and central parts being occupied by various feudal states. The Arunnashngje Empire finally ended when the Green Hordes invaded the peninsula: the feudal states were made into vassals, ruled over by the Vassal General, and the empire itself was dissolved into small independent duchies.

When the Green Horde fell into disarray, the position of Vassal General was taken by Hyls Vanareth, who used her new power to turn the former vassals into a unified (though decentralised) state. This was made official by her daughter, Erraj Vanareth, who named the new state the Lawful Mbetsi Empire and made herself the Empress.

**The Talngje Culture: Combat, the Empire, Religion, and Xenophobia**

Ancient Talngje culture emphasised the importance of combat, and while practices such as trial by combat were outlawed in medieval times, the focus on combat was still reflected in the use of symbolism (for example, political debates were often opened by placing a ceremonial dagger on a podium, the hilt pointing towards one’s opponent), and in the prevalence of sparring among nobility. Additionally, while warfare was no longer as common as it had once been, most major cities had their own militias and these were respected by most of the citizens.

The less autonomous provinces of the Lawful Mbetsi Empire were also marked by a strong cult of personality devoted to the Empress – she was almost never referred to by name, but rather by her title, and pronouns referring to her were written with a bar beneath the word – the equivalent of capitalisation. In those provinces, it was also common to end a public announcement by praising the Empress. In the provinces that _were_ autonomous, this cult of personality was treated with disdain.

There were three main religions in the Empire: the first was the Empress’ cult of personality, which advocated apathy towards any deities; the second was the Arunnash religion (Arunnashklos), which worshipped gods who personified forces of nature; and the third was _qu’nayhrthu’epatl_ , (modified into ‘kunajrthepatl’ for easier pronunciation in Talngje) the ‘way of the soldier’ – this was seen as a foreign religion, especially unpopular during crusades against the nations that practiced this as their state religion. The modern turian religion developed from a combination of the latter two.

On the subject of crusades, the purported Mbetsi heritage of the Imperial Family was used by Empress Hyls Vanareth the Twelfth as justification for the First Hara’et Crusade – according to Imperial Orthodoxy, invading Hara’et would simply mean reclaiming the Mbetsi homeland.

Alongside the Tal, there were other ethnicities in the Lawful Mbetsi Empire – the northern coastal provinces had an ethnic plurality of the Xlanthra, a seafaring people, and there were places in the Empire with significant Vahen minorities. These ethnic groups tended to be seen as outsiders and treated with suspicion unless they assimilated into the local culture.

**Talngje views on sex & gender**

Even during the medieval period, Talngje culture recognised five distinct genders: khodhvranne, the masculine gender; zhuvranne, the feminine gender; khodhzhuvranne, which had both masculine and feminine aspect; lumvranne, the absence of gender; and xeshvranne, a fifth gender. The prefix for each gender also forms the basis of that gender’s third-person pronouns: for example, the pronouns for a zhuvranne are zhu (she), zhugan (her), zhut (hers), zhunatle (herself), and the plurals are zhu’u, zhuganu, zhutu, and zhunatleu.

Gender roles tended to restrict a person’s life choices: khodvranneu were stereotyped as only being suited for “venturing” occupations – herders, soldiers, ambassadors, merchants, missionaries, assassins, and spies – while zhuvranneu were encouraged, and often pressured, to go into administrative or leadership roles, such as elected officials, business managers, or guild leaders. The other three genders were often pushed into artistic or spiritual roles, although they did have slightly more freedom to choose their career paths.

As for sex – the biological differentiator, not the act – it was seen as connected to gender, but neither related nor synonymous. Gender was seen as mental and spiritual while sex was seen as physical – though if the two were out of balance, it was known to cause problems. Fortunately, transitioning was not too difficult since turians can change sex completely if they take the correct hormones. The main challenge was the technical limitation to obtaining these hormones.

Lastly, Talngje culture was mostly unconcerned with sexuality, and the most common orientation was pansexuality. Of note is that relationships were dyadic – that is, composed of couples. During the medieval era, relationships either consisted of one couple (monodyadism) or two couples (duodyadism).

**Politics and the Structure of Government within the Lawful Mbetsi Empire**

The Lawful Mbetsi Empire had a decentralised government. The Empress could make laws on a whim, but those laws could be vetoed by the Senate, which also had the authority to force the Empress to act – both actions would be taken by an electoral vote.

The Senate was a mostly aristocratic institution, ruled by dynasties. Each province had a single vote, but the same person could represent more than one province – the Xatlapf dynasty used this to their advantage by jostling with the Imperial Family for power. Of course, republics also had a representative in the Senate, and who that representative was depended on the structure of that republic’s government.

A province was either owned directly by the Imperial Family, or a republic, or controlled by a dynasty – republics and dynasties both enjoyed autonomy, and both could trade provinces. The Empire also had the authority to seize provinces from a disobedient republic or dynasty.

It’s also important that during this time, an economic system that depended on the circulation of wealth was taking shape. It would not be properly defined until Ti’enar wrote _A Thesis on the Economy_ , but the basic traits of Ti’enarklos were easily identifiable by the time the First Hara’et Crusade began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? Is it good, or interesting? What can I do to make it better?  
> Let me know in the comments - I appreciate all feedback.


	2. The Guild Crisis, Part One

**The Republic of Kpreti and the Lawful Mbetsi Empire**

The Republic of Kpreti was an autonomous city state in the Lawful Mbetsi Empire. The city was founded by the Arunnashngje Empire while the peninsula was still divided between warring city-states: Kpreti’s role was to protect trade routes and act as a military outpost – even the name of the city is derived from _kpre’et_ , the Ancient Talngje word for ‘crossroads’.

Because of its key position in the peninsula’s trade network, when the Arunnashngje Empire crumbled, the city of Kpreti was invaded and occupied by several different provinces, creating a culture of resentment and wariness towards the larger provinces. After Hyls Vanareth became the final Vassal General, she resolved the dispute over which province controlled Kpreti by making Kpreti an independent province.

Initially, Kpreti was ruled by dynasties – but this led to the city being swapped back and forth between whichever dynasty had a member in charge of the province. Eventually, the people of the city rose up against the aristocracy and proclaimed the city to be a republic. The Empire intervened before this led to a war between provinces, but the _de facto_ leaders of the rebellion argued that the dynasties were using the city as a ‘political copper piece’ and not a province to be governed, so the Empress allowed the city to become a self-governing republic.

The city of Kpreti officially became a republic on the first day of the new year. From that point on until the Republic’s end, the Republic of Kpreti’s calendar reckoned the year from ‘the Proclamation’ and began the calendar on ‘Proclamation’s Day’.

The people of the Republic of Kpreti were usually wary of the Lawful Mbetsi Empire’s involvement in the city-state’s government, and while there were many viewpoints, generally the idea of following the lead of the dynastic provinces was scorned. There were two main political factions: the populists, who prioritised the welfare of the population, and the statists, who argued that citizens should be willing to make sacrifices for the good of the state.

The government of the Republic was divided into the Grand Treasury, which gave loans to other branches of government or to guilds; the Bank of the Republic, which served the same purpose towards individuals or private businesses; the Guilds’ Union, which protected the freedom and success of workers in the various industries of the city; the First Court of the Republic, which would set new laws and intervene in disputes that couldn’t be resolved by the other branches of government; the Priesthood, which essentially decided the state religion by the religion of the High Priestess; and the Offices of Kpreti.

The Offices of Kpreti made the majority of decisions on policy, and consisted of: the Office of the Arts, the Office of Academia, the Office of Finances, the Office of Justice, and the Office of Trade. Each Office had a Presiding Official to mediate debates, two Presenting Officials chosen by the Presiding Official to present arguments for either side of the debate, and several other Officials who would vote after the debate.

In addition, there were the Ambassador of the Republic, who represented Kpreti in the Imperial Senate and handled relations with other provinces, and the militia, a volunteer force which protected the city’s walls.

**The Early Life of Vendharxa Khalsatfir**

During the final years of the Republic of Kpreti, Vendharxa Khalsatfir was an Official of Finance. She played an instrumental role in the Guild Crisis and the ensuing events which led to the end of the Republic and a change in the balance of power within the Empire.

The Khalsatfir family began as bluesalt traders in the southern Vahen region of the Talngje Peninsula, outside the Empire’s borders. The Khalsatfiru grew rich and became a trade superpower, with members ruling various duchies in the Vahen – these became known as the Throne of the Khalsatfir. There were even branches of the family who gained influence _within_ the Empire: in the coastal provinces of Ergantl in the south and Rhige’ehta in the north.

However, all of those provinces and duchies were plutocratic, so gaining sufficient wealth was all that was necessary for the Khalsatfiru to gain power there. Vendharxa needed political skill more than the family fortune to gain power in Kpreti.

From the age of three, Vendharxa was fostered by Rinne Hjietshuf as part of a fostering agreement (this was a common agreement between wealthy families at the time – the fostered child would gain valuable skills, while the foster family would receive regular payments from the birth parents until the child turned fifteen). Because of Tal prejudices against the Vahen people, Vendharxa had to integrate herself into the local society – in the process, she made herself an expert on Kpreti’s history, laws, and culture.

Once she was fifteen, Vendharxa returned to the Vahen and spent a year as the apprentice of her aunt and matriarch, Illse’I Khalsatfir, Duchess of Khalsat – it was under her tutelage that Vendharxa learned about economics, politics, tactics, and strategy. At sixteen, Vendharxa returned to Kpreti and enrolled at the Academy of the Republic, where she joined the Society of the Quill – a secret group of teachers, students, and alumni whose political and religious ideas were considered too unorthodox for the Academy. Transcript of Society meetings show that Vendharxa fiercely opposed the state of government at the time.

At twenty years old, Vendharxa completed her studies at the Academy. She’d excelled in history, philosophy, and most of all politics, and soon began a career in politics by joining the Office of Finances as an apprentice, and after two years was put forward as an Office candidate by the Electoral Commission.

Despite her populist views, Vendharxa initially aligned herself with the statists, possibly due to the high influence of and support for the statists in Kpreti’s society and government at the time. After three years as an Official, Vendharxa joined a coalition of members of multiple Offices and of the First Court to investigate bribery among politicians – after two years, this investigation revealed that several prominent statists were taking and giving bribes, which caused a public outcry against statists. Vendharxa issued the statists an ultimatum: either they clean up their act or Vendharxa switches sides and takes several other young Officials with her, as well as the public’s support.

The statist response was a purge of Vendharxa’s potential supporters from the Offices under the pretence of fighting corruption, and attempted to frame Vendharxa herself – they failed and instead gave her a reason to switch sides and join the populists. Meanwhile, the statist faction found that they had gutted themselves with the purges and the exodus of young Officials to the populists.

Two years later, the Guild Crisis began and Vendharxa entered the limelight once more.

**The Early Life of Ulvonn Vinsarl**

Unlike Vendharxa, Ulvonn Vinsarl was born in Kpreti: her family was an influential one as the matriarch, Serhang Vinsarl, was the manager of the Bank of the Republic. Growing up under Serhang’s tutelage taught Ulvonn the usefulness of leverage and financial influence.

At age fifteen, Ulvonn joined the Academy. She excelled at much of the same classes as Vendharxa, but unlike the latter, Ulvonn never got joined the Society of the Quill, and took part in efforts to expose the Society. Ulvonn’s journals show that she initially respected Vendharxa, but their differing views on censorship and the relationship between the state and the people soured their friendship.

Like Vendharxa, Ulvonn joined the Office of Finances after leaving the Academy, and they both became Officials in the same year, when Ulvonn was twenty-one years old. Ulvonn used her matriarch’s influence to push through statist policies, which Vendharxa found out about but could not prove – this is believed by most historians to have been Vendharxa’s initial reason for joining the investigation into government corruption.

Ulvonn was never exposed as corrupt, but she used the statist purges and the attempts by other statists to cover up their own corruption to gain leverage over them and used this to become the de facto leader of the statist faction. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Guild Crisis is kind of an important event in my version of Palaven's history. Technically. It's more of a 'Treaty of Westphalia' kind of thing than a 'Triple Alliance' kind of thing, but it's still pretty important. Anyway, this chapter was basically an introduction to the two key individuals in the Guild Crisis. The next chapter will be a backstory for the crisis, then after that it will be about the actual crisis itself.  
> I hope you all enjoyed this newest installment. Let me know what you think in the comments. Is there a way for me to improve on how I'm writing this story, and if so what kind of thing would you like to see?


	3. The Guild Crisis, Part Two

**The First Hara’et Crusade**

In the year 301 _rana-Suthlekang_ (after the Proclamation), the Mbetsi Empress declared war on the lands of Tshibarl and Irnin. The reason for this war was that Tshilbar controlled North Hara’et and Irnin controlled South Hara’et – the two halves of the Mbetsi homeland. Since the Imperial Family proudly claimed to be directly descended from the Mbetsi kings and queens of old, they sought to ‘regain’ these lands and truly restore the Mbetsi Empire.

That was the beginning of the fourteen-year-long First Hara’et Crusade.

The war was costly, bloody, and only ended when the Lawful Mbetsi Empire had invaded and occupied Hara’et, quashed all resistance, and burned the surrounding bushland. Tshilbar and Irnin surrendered, and fifteen from every eighteen soldiers went home. The remaining soldiers occupied the Hara’et cities to ‘keep order’.

The war was hated by the Senate and by provinces like Kpreti. When the war ended, the Empire found that it had overspent, and so the Empress and the Senate levied a higher tribute on the non-dynastic provinces (the dynasties would have blocked any attempted to make _them_ pay more tribute to the Empire). How the provinces would fund this was left up to them.

In the case of Kpreti, that decision was down to the Office of Finances. Neither the statists nor the populists considered refusing to pay to be a viable option – if they did that, the city would come under Imperial occupation by the end of the year, and that was anathema to every policy-maker in the Republic.

The populists lacked a concrete plan: some suggested taxing the wealthy residents of Kpreti in proportion to their wealth and using the tax money to pay the tribute, others wanted to use the planned trade deal with the Xatlapf province to find the money, while others still wanted to use that same trade deal to turn the Xatlapf dynasty into an ally who _would_ actually be able to force the Senate to change their demands. But there was no consensus among this faction, no solution that had majority support within the populists.

It was the statist faction who had come to a consensus on how to pay the increased tribute to the Empire.

**Overview of the statist tax plan**

The statist tax plan raised taxes on artisans working in the city of Kpreti – the artisans were singled out because they collectively made up the largest industry in the city at the time. (At that point, the term ‘industry’ was a vague descriptor for a field of work, but Ti’enar’s _Thesis on the Economy_ would give it a strict definition.) The artisans were vintners, carpenters, masons, cobblers, tailors, carvers, potters, and other such fields of work.

There was a second aspect of the statist tax plan: an increase in tariffs on goods brought into the city by merchants. While artisans were the most active part of Kpreti’s economy, the city had no raw material industries. Merchants supplied Kpreti and its artisans with meat, stone, salt, seeds, herbs, textiles, wood, and metal. Because the city relied on merchants, and was easily accessible to them (it _had_ been built in the middle of the trade network, after all), it was also popular to merchants.

**The Office of Finances debate & verdict**

The tax plan was one of three issues discussed in the Office of Finance on the twentieth of Ulvotmena, the other two being the trade agreement with the Xatlapf province and the budget for maintaining government properties.

The Presiding Official of Finance at that time was Gilizh Edhero. Vendharxa Khalsatfir was the Presenting Official for the populists and Ulvonn Vinsarl was the Presiding Official for the statists.

During the debate, Vendharxa mentioned that the reason for the tax plan was to pay for the Crusade – which, in her speech, she referred to as ‘a war we did not want’. In response, Ulvonn challenged this claim. Vendharxa backed her claim up by referring to Ulvonn’s own description of the Crusade as ‘a futile war’ in an Office debate five years earlier, offering a copy of the relevant debate transcript as evidence.

Ulvonn Vinsarl prevented an immediate loss by arguing that the debate should be postponed so that the transcript could be verified. Gilizh Edhero agreed to postpone the debate by five days, and on the twenty-fifth of Ulvotmena the debate resumed with a 56 to 28 vote in favour of the tax plan.

**Controversy surrounding the verdict**

The Office of Finances verdict on the tax plan was surrounded by controversy in the following years, as allegations were made that Ulvonn had forced fifteen statists to vote for the tax plan when they would otherwise have voted against it.

The reasoning for the allegations was that the fifteen statists had ‘appeared to agree with Vendharxa’s arguments during the debate.’ Public records showed that three days after the initial debate, seven of them had received letters from the Bank of the Republic telling them that they would have to pay their loans back earlier than arranged, while the other eight were rejected for loans they had applied for on the same day. In addition, records from the Bank of the Republic show that Ulvonn had visited her family matriarch, a manager at the bank, two days prior to this.

That claim was contested for a long time, but when the journals of the fifteen statists and of Ulvonn were released to the public, it was shown that Ulvonn did indeed suspect that those fifteen would vote against the tax plan and asked her matriarch to pressure them to vote for it. Those same journals also reveal that Ulvonn made several attempts to prevent those allegations from being investigated as she feared that an investigation would reveal her guilt.

**Was the tax plan the right decision?**

Taxing the artisans and merchants would have quickly gained the Republic enough money to pay the tribute, as the two groups made more money in the city of Kpreti than any other group, with the exception of the administrative class that ran the various branches of government. Statists argued that this tax plan was the most reliable way to pay the tribute – and failure was not an option, as failing to pay the tribute would have cost Kpreti its very autonomy.

On the other hand, the long-term effects of the tax plan would have been devastating: both the artisans and the merchants would have been forced to spend less to pay the tax, which would have left them with fewer goods to sell and in turn forced them to raise their prices. Ultimately, this would have prevented the circulation of wealth and slowed trade.

Additionally, the administrative class was untouched by the tax plan, which has been taken by some historians as evidence of another agenda: of the three highest-earning fields of work at the time, only the one that earnt the most profits out of all of them was not taxed; and artisans and merchants were both known to support populists over statists, with artisans making up the majority of the Workers’ Guild.

The counter-arguments to this are that the statists at the very least had a definite plan, which the populists lacked, and that the journals of statists from the time show that while some cared more about political power, the majority of them truly believed that their tax plan was the best way to defend the Republic of Kpreti.

To this day, the debate over whether the statist tax plan was a good thing continues, with the general consensus being that it was the best of the options the Office of Finances had to choose from, but extremely flawed, and that the motivations behind it were a mix of loyalty to the state and hunger for power, but this consensus is nowhere near universal.


	4. The Guild Crisis, Part Three

##  **What were the Guilds and how did they respond to the statist tax plan?**

The Guilds were organisations created and run by artisans in various fields of work. Two of the oldest Guilds were the Vintners’ Guild and the Masons’ Guild. The purpose of the Guilds was to represent the workers in everything from legal disputes to applying for loans, and to mediate between competing artisans. Early on, the Guilds had almost universal approval from artisans, but were viewed with indifference by other workers and suspicion by the wealthier members of Kpreti’s society.

The various Guilds were united by a larger organisation called the Guilds’ Union. While the Guilds themselves tended to be decentralised and make decisions by popular vote, the Guilds’ Union had a Union Leader to make decisions which would then be ratified or vetoed by representatives of each individual Guild. The Guilds’ Union was more controversial among artisans than the Guilds themselves, partly because of Union Leaders’ history of being corrupt.

When the statist tax plan was passed, the Guilds protested it on the grounds that it threatened artisans’ business. The Guilds’ Union announced its opposition to the tax plan shortly after.

##  **What was the militia?**

The city of Kpreti at the time had a volunteer militia. This was one of the few largely kodhvranne professions in Talngje culture. The militia patrolled the small area of countryside outside the city walls that still belonged to Kpreti, especially the roads leading into or out of the city, and if the Empire called for it they would send a number of troops to aid in a war. They could also be called on by the Republic of Kpreti to put down civil unrest.

The militia was diverse in terms of both economic status and political alignment: some members had wealthy families and sided with the statists because of the overlap, others were workers who had crafted their own success and were sympathetic to the populists, a third group shared the statist devotion to the state and splintered into those who sided with the statists and those who were disappointed by the statists, and likewise a fourth group that shared the populist commitment to the people was divided between populist supporters and critics. Matters were only complicated by the fact that several members of the militia belonged to more than one group.

##  **Why did negotiations fail?**

When negotiations between the Office of Finance and the Guilds’ Union opened, both sides were anxious about how it would go. The statists of the Office of Finance had no love lost for the Guilds’ Union, and the Union knew this and were worried that Ulvonn Vinsarl, the chosen negotiator for the statists, would play hardball. On the other hand, Vinsarl had risked too much to get the tax plan through to back out now, but knew that if the negotiations dragged on for too long there was a risk of the First Court getting involved.

That was not something Vinsarl wanted to happen.

So both sides hoped for a swift end to the negotiations in their favour. Shockingly, after only a few days Thentlas Lunne, the Union Leader announced that the Guilds’ Union was backing down and accepting the statist tax plan, which was protested by most of the artisans.

##  **The Guilds’ Strike**

Things came to a head when Vendharxa Khalsatfir publicly revealed that the Union Leader was being blackmailed by Ulvonn Vinsarl. Once the Guilds’ Union verified those claims, they removed the Union Leader. That role was then handed to Senjisk Nak, a vintner who had been influential in the Vintners’ Guild.

As Union Leader, Senjisk announced that the Guilds’ Union would refuse to do work until the statists gave up on their tax plan. There would be no more negotiations: if the Office of Finances failed to comply, the artisans would close their businesses. Ulvonn called the Guilds’ bluff and announced that the Office of Finances would not back down to “a rabble of posturing artisans.” This led to the first documented workers’ strike in Kpreti’s history.

##  **The Escalation of the Crisis**

Initially, the Office of Finances passed budgetary measures to try to outlast the Guilds, but after five days they escalated the crisis instead, calling for the militia to forcibly end the strike. The militia entered the city with the intent to intimidate the protesters into submission, and if that failed resort to violent force. The Guilds resisted the militia’s demands, and the situation would have turned into a massacre had General Inrid Bessvala not left his band of the militia and walked over to the protesters’ side.

The rest of the band soon followed, which sparked a mass mutiny as almost all of the militia joined the protesters. Historians continue to debate why this happened, but most agree that Inrid had been convinced by his foster sister Vendharxa Khalsatfir to side with the protesters, and had likewise persuaded the soldiers who followed him.

With the militia on the Guilds’ side, the statists capitulated and Ulvonn Vinsarl herself announced that the tax plan was being withdrawn to be revised. The unspoken addition to that was ‘or replaced with a better alternative’ and that ended up being what was done, with an outcome that changed the course of Kpreti’s and the Mbetsi Empire’s history forever.

##  **Effects of the Guild Crisis**

The Guild Crisis lessened the authority of Kpreti’s government, brought about a divide between the government and the militia, and left the city with no way to pay the tribute demanded by the Empire. The first two effects both contributed to the Market Riots and the eventual collapse of the Republic’s government, while the third effect was the reason for the alliance between Kpreti and the Xatlapf dynasty, as well as the increasing tension between the city-state and the Empire.

##  **Who was right?**

Despite being remembered as power-hungry despots, the statist position did have merits: their tax plan, while damaging to the economy and the livelihoods of artisans, was the immediate source of money that Kpreti needed to pay the tribute to the Empire. Statists during this time often claimed that without the tax plan, the city would inevitably come under imperial occupation – and history almost proved them right.

The Guilds in turn argued that the tax plan would have had a much worse effect in the long term: with the recent publication of _A Thesis on the Economy_ , it was clear that damaging the artisan industry in such a way would have crippled Kpreti’s economy and made it impossible to pay the tribute in the long term. Additionally, the taxes were too high for the majority of artisans to pay them without drastically cutting expenses, which would have cost them their quality of life as well as the quality of their craft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Guild Crisis arc is over, but I'll be writing two more chapters before getting on to the results of the crisis. Til then, I appreciate all feedback.


	5. The Wealth of the Vatlonje

# Who was Risang Ni’ex?

Risang Ni’ex’s family was one of the more successful families in Kpreti’s Thalanxe community. The Thalanxe people faced a lot of prejudice from the Talgnje at the time, mostly because of their descent from the Xlanthra people to the north, as well as their self-contained communities.

While the Thalanxe people were ostracised by Talngje society, some Thalanxe families were able to become very successful indeed, and the Ni’ex family was one of them: they were very wealthy and known for financing the Academy of the Republic.

After Risang was born, she experienced all the benefits of having a rich and well-connected family. Risang’s parents hired several notable philosophers to be her tutors, making sure that she was well-educated long before she’d enrol in the Academy. Her tutors reported that she showed a particular aptitude for subjects like history, geography, and politics, so Risang’s parents decided to help her continue down this path and, when Risang turned fifteen, arranged for her to travel to the Library of Mburnen for her apprenticeship.

The city of Mburnen was the capital of Tshibalr, and a well-known and very ancient city. It was one of the earliest stratocracies on Palaven, if not _the_ earliest. The First Hara’et Crusade may have soured relations between Tshibalr and the Mbetsi Empire, but Tshibalr kept its borders open for travellers, especially those seeking to study in the capital.

Risang’s apprenticeship consisted of two main duties: finding new tomes to add to the Library, and annotating old tomes to reflect changing knowledge or new views on the writer’s intentions and methods. Sometimes whole pages had to be added to update a book. Her mentors also expected her to memorize at least some of the works in the Library.

She memorized hundreds of books.

During her time at the Library of Mburnen, Risang began to develop a fascination with poetry and theatre. It was a mild interest at first, but later it would grow and change the course of her life. She also became familiar with kunajrthepatl, and converted when she was sixteen.

At the Academy, Risang studied philosophy, politics, history, and poetry. She joined the Society of the Quill, and developed her own political opinions. After leaving the Academy, she decided to pursue a career in government – and, surprising her family, joined the Office of the Arts. Within the next four years, Risang became a well-known populist and an influential leader of the anti-censorship movement.

# Who was Naklu Iventsinje?

Naklu Iventsinje was the son of two vendors. In most cases, this would have set him down that path as well, but Naklu was fortunate enough to see a performance by the Bards’ Company in the marketplace when he was eleven years old. He became fascinated with theatre, and looked for any ways into the field. His parents, noticing this, saved up enough money to pay for his apprenticeship with the Bards Company when he turned fifteen.

Being part of the Bards’ Company, the most prestigious theatre group in the peninsula, had several advantages for Naklu: travelling with the Company made him much more worldly than he had been before, working with such famous playwrights and actors helped him develop his own skills, and once he completed his apprenticeship the Bards’ Company agreed to finance his enrolment in the Academy.

It was in the Academy that he wrote his earliest plays, while studying theatre, politics, and philosophy. His early works faced a setback in that he had to finance the production himself, paying freelance actors as well as paying theatre owners to let his play be shown. It was also in the Academy that Naklu met Vita Hezhlant – the later-famous botanist – and fell in love with him. The two got married when Naklu was twenty-one and Vita was twenty-two.

Naklu may have been an obscure playwright at first, but ‘The Wealth of the Vatlonje’ was the play that made him a famous and controversial satirist.

# The Wealth of the Vatlonje

‘The Wealth of the Vatlonje’ was a political satire revolving around the fictitious Vatlonje dynasty and a feud between the family’s matriarch and her heir. However, the play became known not for its plot, but for its subtext: the play showed priests buying their way into the upper ranks of the priesthood and using intimidation to subjugate the cult religions; bankers hoarding money and not caring for the effects their actions would have on the poor; and a group of Officials intimidated into voting for an unfair tax plan by the Presenting Official supporting the plan, and the matriarch of the Presenting Official’s family.

Especially notable was the fact that all of the corrupt figures in the play met tragic ends, and the Vatlonje family was destroyed by its own greed and pettiness, its wealth ultimately amounting to nothing.

This made the play controversial, and the statists, bankers, and Priesthood, started accusing Naklu of libel. The Priesthood actually tried to get the death penalty reinstated for heresy, but the First Court shot that down. Eventually, the Office of the Arts announced that they would hold a vote on whether the play should be banned or not. Presenting Officials from both factions were chosen and given twelve days to prepare.

Risang Ni’ex was the Presenting Official for the statists, and spoke to Naklu to determine if the statists could portray him as guilty of libel. Naklu told her that the Society of the Quill had anonymously received transcripts of the Office of Finances debate on the statists’ tax plan, and Naklu suspected corruption.

When the Office of the Arts debated the fate of the play and the playwright, the statists tried to use the parallels between the actions of Officials in the play and the Office of Finances debate transcripts to portray the play as libellous. In response, Risang pointed out that to prove it was libel, they would have to investigate the allegations and determine if they are true.

This is believed to have forced Ulvonn Vinsarl’s hand and caused her to convince her fellow statists to change tactics. The play would not be condemned as libel, but they could have it banned from theatres for sedition.

Vendharxa Khalsatfir’s journals indicate that she was the one to send the transcripts to the Academy, with the goal of inspiring something like the play.

#  Aftermath of the Censorship

The Wealth of the Vatlonje could still be shown in brothels and other ‘disreputable’ establishments – this seemed like it would prevent the play’s success, but in actuality the play turned out to be very popular among the working classes, who often had little love for the government, and especially for the priesthood and the statists.

The play became so influential that it ended up being the main inspiration for various ‘Iventsiklos’ or ‘Anti-Vatlonje Movements’ which opposed the government of the Republic and argued for political reform, or in some cases for outright revolution. These movements would eventually contribute to the rise of stratocracy in the Talngje peninsula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some foreshadowing going on here. More exciting than that, though: this is only the first of two chapters I'll be posting today. The second will be up in a few minutes (from 21:42 GMT, 25th March 2018)


	6. A Thesis on the Economy

# The economy of medieval Kpreti

In the Early Medieval Era, Kpreti had a barter-based economy with a loose economic system, as did the rest of the Tal peninsula. However, after the Lawful Mbetsi Empire was born, the peninsula became stable, trade boomed, and Kpreti rose to prosperity. Improvements to roads helped with this, as did the peace between different regions – provinces rich in one resource, such as timber, could trade with provinces rich in other resources, such as fish.

The increase in stability and complexity of trade affected the economy, creating an increase in wealth. However, the quasi-feudalistic nature of the Empire meant that most of this wealth went to the nobility rather than the workers. To justify this, Stratification Theory was developed: this was the argument that the economy was divided into strata and lower strata depended on higher strata for their existence.

Aristocrats ensured that Stratification Theory became academic orthodoxy, even in Kpreti, but it wasn’t an accurate, precise, or comprehensive description of the economy. For a long time, it was believed that something like that was impossible.

Then Nihlyts Ti’enar came along.

# Who was Nihlyts Ti’enar?

Nihlyts Ti’enar was an academic who studied philosophy, politics, and business, and a pioneer of the field of economics. After completing their studies at the Academy, Nihlyts remained there to study the “nature of wealth” and condense it to several basic principles. Their studies were derided by the academic community at first, because their goal was thought to be either impossible or unnecessary depending on who was asked, but Nihlyts persisted.

When Ulvonn Vinsarl’s tax plan was passed, there was outcry from the populist academics, and many of them published papers accusing the tax plan of sabotaging the economy. Those academics were often censored by the Office of Academia.

Nihlyts Ti’enar tried a subtler tactic: they took everything they’d learned about the economy in their years of study, and used that knowledge to write a full thesis on the economy in a way that implicitly criticised the statists’ logic. Since no such work had been attempted before, Ti’enar simply called it _A Thesis on the Economy_.

# Overview of the _Thesis_

The _Thesis_ begins by defining different aspects of the economy: the first chapter is on different fields of work, and the distinction between types of field of work: industries, trades, services, employs, and careers. As Ti’enar defined them, an industry is a collective labour, or business, that involves the production of goods and is run by the workers; a trade involves an exchange of goods instead; a service – for example teaching or medicine – is work that does not involve goods; an employ is a field of work which is run by a wealthy business owner or by the government; and a career is a field of work undertaken individually rather than collectively. The first chapter also defines ‘goods’ as something which is made or used to make new products; and a field of work as being labour that is voluntary but undertaken for profit, as opposed to charity work (which is voluntary but not for profit), or slavery (which is neither voluntary nor for profit).

At that point, Ti’enar deviates from the topic briefly to commend charity work and condemn slavery. He also mentions that hypothetically, non-voluntary for-profit labour could exist, but that there is no reason why the person forcing the worker to work would pay them for it.

The next five chapters discuss the different fields of work in more detail, one chapter for each type. In the chapter on industries, the subcategory of artisans is defined as ‘industries which obtain goods from other fields of work to produce their own goods’ – vintners obtain thanesroot leaves, masons obtain building materials, and so on.

The seventh chapter takes on Stratification Theory, by pointing out various examples of fields of work that according to the theory are on the same stratus depend on each other more than on fields of work in either the higher or lower strata, as well as the logical inconsistencies in the division of strata and in the rationale for the concept.

Following this, the eighth chapter focuses on the exchange of currency, and how people obtain valuable goods and services. Ti’enar argues that since the fields of work that provide these goods and services to the person require other goods and services, as do the workers in these fields, this means that the economy is interconnected, referring back to the previous chapter, and from this they reason that “one cannot obtain valuable goods and services without trade and the circulation of wealth”.

The ninth chapter took this ‘First Postulate’ as Ti’enar called it and used it to reason the Second Postulate: as the economy depends on people’s wealth, people’s wealth depends on their wellbeing, and people’s wellbeing depends on their ability to obtain valuable goods and services, which in turn depends on trade and the circulation of wealth, the logical conclusion is that “the economy depends on trade and the circulation of wealth.”

The tenth chapter uses the Second Postulate to obtain a Third: that stagnant wealth is harmful to the economy. This is also the chapter that defines stagnant wealth as wealth which is not in use or in circulation. This principle has been summed up as ‘if you have money, do something with it.’

The eleventh chapter provides a Fourth Postulate: there are situations where it is necessary to save money, so in order to prevent stagnant wealth while still being able to prepare oneself for such a situation, the correct course of action would be to “first define the necessary amount of wealth, and the purpose of it, then once the necessary amount has been acquired and the opportunity presents itself, use it for the defined purpose.”

The twelfth chapter details a thought experiment in which a merchant begins to charge more for building materials, forcing a mason to start charging more for their services in order to pay for the more expensive material, which in turn has the same effect on the architect. This ultimately discourages people from commissioning new buildings as it is now more expensive, which in turn lowers the profits of architects, who cannot afford to pay masons as much, who in turn must buy cheaper building materials, causing the quality of their work to decrease. The chapter describes the ensuing vicious cycle, and the effect on other fields of work, and uses this to demonstrate the conclusion that “if two or more connected industries are out of balance, this will unbalance the trade and circulation of wealth between the two,” implicitly referring to the Second Postulate again to portray this as a bad thing. This is the Fifth Postulate.

The thirteenth chapter then expands on this Fifth Postulate to state that “connected industries should be kept in equilibrium with each other”, the Sixth Postulate, and goes on to outline ways to ensure this is done.

The next five chapters go over the various types of connections between industries (as well as other fields of work) and the final six defend the Postulates.

# Reception and Reaction

Nihlyts’ _Thesis_ quickly became seen as a groundbreaking work, and would become the model for economic policy for years to come. However, there were some criticisms made, mostly to do with how Nihlyts focused on industry above other categories of work, to the point where the Postulates refer only to industries when they could be applied to the other categories as well. Because of this, some variations of the Six Postulates replace the term “industry” with “labour” or “field of work.”

Another criticism is the omission of fields of work such as mining, fishing, farming, herding, and the like. It is generally believed that Nihlyts Ti’enar chose to focus on the economy of Kpreti specifically, as the city did not have these fields of work. Later economists would argue about how to classify these fields until a new category was created: harvesting industry, where instead of goods being produced, raw materials are harvested.

Additionally, when the _Thesis_ was released some academics argued for omitting the Fourth Postulate as it was seen as the weakest of the six, and not directly relevant to the economy.

However, despite these criticisms, the arguments put forward in the _Thesis_ were accepted by most of Kpreti’s society, the exceptions being the wealthier residents of the city who directly benefited from Stratification Theory.

# Legacy

Nihlyts Ti’enar became known as the Founder of Economics due to their thesis, and the main economic model would become known as Ti’enarklos, although Nihlyts themselves refused to refer to the model by their own name, instead calling it ‘Interconnectivity Theory.’

Ti’enarklos eventually became the framework for economic policies during the reforms that followed the failure of the Office government. It also inspired offshoots, most famously Moral Interconnectivity, which took Ti’enar’s postulates and applied equivalent principles to morality. Other offshoots applied equivalents to the Six Postulates to everything from spirituality to the military. These were and are viewed with varying degrees of acceptance, to say the least.

_A Thesis on the Economy_ also had another long-term effect, inspiring populist movements, which the Stratifists banded together to crush. The Stratifist Movement eventually became a key factor in the downfall of the Office government. Even though Stratification Theory was phased out of academic circles, it made a return a few decades later in the form of the Counter-Stratification Movement – incidentally, one of the turian terms for the Batarian Hegemony during the Post-Genophage Era.

In short, _A Thesis on the Economy_ was the most influential work in the history of Kpreti’s academia until Vita Hezhlant published the results of his study on thanesroot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the second of today's two chapters. So, what do you think, my readers?
> 
> Anyway, I'll be taking a three-week break from writing fanfics, but I will be planning the next step for each of my works in progress, so I'd like your input. Should I keep this story like this, or switch to a more narrative format? I feel like that might do a better job of showing rather than telling - my previous attempt at this did show Vendharxa's manipulative side a lot more, which is why I'm considering going narrative again.


	7. The Aftermath of the Guild Crisis

# The Fallout of the Guild Crisis

As previously mentioned, two of the effects of the Guild Crisis were that the authority of Kpreti’s government was lessened and a divide between the government and the militia formed. These would be a major factor in later events, but there was another effect that had a more immediate impact: the lack of any means for the Republic of Kpreti to pay tribute to the Empire.

When an autonomous province within the Empire failed to pay tribute, three things would happen: first, the rulers of the province would be imprisoned and put on trial for treason; second, the lands of the province would be confiscated by the Imperial family themselves; and third, the province would be placed under Imperial military occupation.

Nobody in all of Kpreti wanted any of this to happen. The question was how to prevent it.

The statists’ attempt to raise the money needed to pay tribute had failed, which led people to turn to the populists for answers. For some time, the populists had been divided on how to respond, but after a meeting of the populist Officials of Finance called by Vendharxa Khalsatfir, a decision was made: they would seek a trade deal with the Xatlapf province.

# What was the Xatlapf Province?

The Xatlapf Province was an eastern autonomous province in the Empire, ruled by the Xatlapf Dynasty. This dynasty was notable in that the only family in the Empire with more power was the Imperial Family itself – and the two did not get along.

The Xatlapf family first bought the province from the Imperial family twelve years after the establishment of the Empire. Nobles were able to buy provinces in exchange for votes in the Imperial Senate, and in return would pay tribute to the Imperial family. The nobles got political power and the Empire got money, and everyone was happy.

Initially, the Xatlapf Province had been small but wealthy, the nobles in charge of it making money from the mineral deposits under the province. Then one of the Xatlapf matriarchs, Vetlara Xatlapf, bought several neighbouring provinces and incorporated them into the Xatlapf Province, keeping their senatorial votes. Vetlara’s likely motivations for doing this were to increase her political power in general, but also something more specific: shortly after incorporating the newly bought provinces, Vetlara called a senatorial vote on mineral trade laws – and with her newly gained votes in the Senate, she was able to push through new legislation that raised the prices of minerals and lowered the tariffs at the same time. (Although the tariffs were only lowered for provinces that ‘had more than three mineral deposits within a day’s walking distance of the capital,’ criteria that only applied to the Xatlapf province itself.)

This caused the Xatlapf Province’s wealth to multiply exponentially, which had the benefit of allowing them to buy _more_ neighbouring provinces to push through _more_ legislation that benefitted them, boosting their wealth even further, at which point the cycle started again.

In an effort to curtail the growth of the Xatlapf Dynasty’s power, the Senate voted to fix the price of a province as twelve times the province’s wealth. This made it harder for the Dynasty to buy the larger provinces, though some of the small ones were fair game.

As the Xatlapf Dynasty’s power grew, they developed an interest in the Republic of Kpreti. They knew they couldn’t just _buy_ the city – the people there were too protective of their independence for that – but they _could_ get it on their side. Kpreti was practically sitting on the trade routes that held the Empire together, and making a successful trade deal with them would lead the Xatlapf Dynasty to even more wealth than before. Not to mention, if they were able to influence its policies, they could use the city to bring a rival province crashing down, then buy it at a lower price than would otherwise have been possible.

# Who was the Xatlapf matriarch?

Early Life

Vandhra IV Xatlapf was the Xatlapf matriarch during the time of the Guild Crisis. She had been born forty-four years earlier and had spent most of her childhood in Silathi, the capital of the Xatlapf province, being taught everything from duelling to politics. The Silathi view of politics was that it all came down to money, and Vandhra was adept at applying this lesson.

She became the matriarch at the age of thirty-two. At the time that she came to power, the Xatlapf province had stopped building up its power, satisfied with where it was. Vandhra was _not_ satisfied, and one of her first actions as matriarch was to make the military and aristocratic classes into one: aristocrats who were able to serve would be conscripted, and anybody who joined the military would be considered an aristocrat. She then had the military seize the mineral mines, turning them into state property so that all of the profits went to the province itself.

There were many aristocrats and labourers who protested this, but with the military on Vandhra’s side, there was not much either of them could do. The aristocrats who refused to join were executed for treason, and those who _did_ try to join but opposed Vandhra’s ideas were institutionalized.

Vandhra’s rule was ruthless. But it was also efficient: she effectively created a military dictatorship with her in charge, and ensured that the province’s greatest asset belonged entirely to the province.

With her power cemented, she resumed the Xatlapf dynasty’s acquisition of provinces, with a twist: because the Senate had tied the price of a province to that province’s wealth, Vandhra would find ways to lower the wealth of a province, then buy it and build the wealth of it back up. This was most often done by having the military, disguised as bandits and outlaws, raid those provinces, burning down key cities and farms, but there was another way: cutting a province off from trade routes.

This was a slow expansion, but it was quick enough to worry the Empire. Many Senate meetings were dominated by the Imperial family trying to curtail the spread of the Xatlapf province, while the Xatlapf dynasty attempted to undermine the Empire’s power over the autonomous provinces.

# The Xatlapf-Kpreti Trade Deal

Negotiations

Shortly after the Guild Crisis, representatives from Kpreti’s Office of Finances – specifically, Vendharxa and Ulvonn – met with Vandhra Xatlapf to negotiate the terms of the trade deal. The negotiations began on 1 Sarathmena and ended on 7 Sarathmena, with the deal being signed on 9 Sarathmena.

Both parties wanted something out of the deal: the Xatlapf dynasty wanted influence over trade in the Empire via Kpreti as a means of getting more power, and Kpreti wanted to be able to pay its tribute to the Empire and retain its independence. In such a situation, whether the negotiations would fail or succeed depended on what they came down to: who wanted their goal more, or how many ways were there for both parties to get what they wanted. Ultimately, these negotiations came down to the second.

The terms of the trade deal were: that the Xatlapf province would lower the price of minerals when trading with Kpreti by a tenth while allowing Kpreti to raise the tariffs on minerals by a similar amount; that Kpreti would not trade with any province that the Xatlapf province declared an embargo on; and that the Xatlapf province would not buy any provinces that Kpreti was trading with.

# Was the trade deal a better option than the tax plan?

Benefits of the trade deal

One of the main benefits of the trade deal to Kpreti were that they would be able to obtain minerals from the Xatlapf province at a lower price than before, then sell these minerals and make more money, allowing them to pay off the tribute to the Empire. Another benefit was that Kpreti, already a trading hub, would now attract offers for trade deals with provinces worried about being acquired by the Xatlapf dynasty, since trading with Kpreti lowered this risk.

However, there were drawbacks. The obvious was that Kpreti’s options for trade were restricted – if the Xatlapf province declared an embargo on a province, Kpreti would have to do the same. While the deal didn’t address this, such an embargo would also leave said province unprotected by the third term of the trade deal.

An even more significant drawback was that Kpreti was now seen as an ally of the Xatlapf province, which further alienated it from the Imperial family. The Empire would look for pretexts to re-assert control over Kpreti in the future.

One thing that was overlooked at the time was that the trade deal was between the Xatlapf province and the _Republic_ of Kpreti. And though few noticed it at the time, the Republic was on its way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I'm posting for this again. I'll be posting the next chapter, which will start off the Stratifist Crisis, on Thursday.  
> Let me know what you think of it so far in the comments below.


	8. The Stratifist Crisis, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is the context to the Stratifist Crisis. The next chapter is when the crisis stars. Hope you enjoy!

# The Administrative Class of Kpreti

The administrative class were Kpreti’s nobility. Administratives were born to a high status in the republic – typically, they were related to bankers, officials, and priests. They enjoyed both formal and informal privileges: informal in that they were more likely to gain positions of power for themselves, and that through their powerful relatives they were able to exert more influence than they otherwise would have; formal in that they were exempt from military service and taxation.

The administrative class was seen in two different ways: some saw it as the backbone of the Republic, holding society together with their power – most of these people belonged to the administrative class themselves, unsurprisingly; others saw it as a parasite, reaping the fruits of other people’s labour but not sowing anything of use themselves. The Guild Crisis exacerbated the tension between these two views: the administrative class and the statists alike were seen as the reason for the hated tax plan, and the guilds in turn were considered dangerous upstarts by the administrative class.

What was ultimately more dangerous to the administrative class in terms of the fallout of the Guild Crisis was the rise of the Anti-Administrative Movements.

# The Anti-Administrative Movements

The Anti-Administrative Movements were a series of movements by the workers, academics, and populist officials of Kpreti that rose to popularity following the Guild Crisis. These movements had the goal of curtailing the power and privilege enjoyed by the administrative class and holding said class accountable for their actions. Initially, the three main movements were the Anti-Vatlonje Movement, the Anti-Stratification Movement, and the Spiritual Connectivists. Of these, the latter two were inspired by _A_ _Thesis on the Economy_ while the former was inspired by _The Wealth of the Vatlonje_.

The Anti-Vatlonje Movement

The Anti-Vatlonje Movement was inspired by Naklu Iventsinje’s play _The Wealth of the Vatlonje_ , which depicted a fictional corrupt family in the administrative class. The Anti-Vatlonje movement initially campaigned for greater accountability for administrative class and an end to the kind of bribery depicted in the play. (While prioritising one’s family is encouraged in turian society to this day, this movement marked the beginning of a distinction between the just and unjust forms of this – hiring a relative rather than an equally qualified stranger was one thing, bribing someone to help a relative was another.)

Later, the movement would splinter into two groups: those who simply wanted the administrative class to be more virtuous and less like the one depicted in the play, and those who wanted to abolish the administrative class altogether. The former kept the name of the movement, while the latter founded the Revolutionary Movement and allied with the similar but less extreme Anti-Stratifist Movement.

The Anti-Stratification Movement

The Anti-Stratification Movement was inspired by Nihlyts Ti’enar’s famous thesis. Ti’enar was not a member of the movement, but they were a vocal supporter. The Anti-Stratifists argued that since Stratification Theory was proven false, systems and structures based on it should be abolished and replaced with ones based on Connectivity Theory. Their protests generally took one of three forms: peaceful resistance, civil disobedience, or uncivil obedience. However, later members of the movement argued for more violent means of ending Stratification, and many of them eventually left and joined the Revolutionary Movement.

The Spiritual Connectivists

The Spiritual Connectivists weren’t opposing the administrative class itself so much as the Priesthood. They believed that Connectivity Theory could be applied to spirituality as well: some interpreted this as the various faiths needing each other to exist, others as a spiritual interpretation of the interconnected nature of society and of the world itself. Both groups called themselves the Spiritual Connectivists, but historians generally refer to the latter as Interfaith Connectivists instead.

Both groups of Spiritual Connectivists viewed the Priesthood as dangerous to a spiritual harmony: the Interfaith Connectivists condemned the Priesthood for pitting different religions against each other, while the Spiritual Connectivists themselves argued that the Priesthood enforced a stratified and organized version of religion as opposed to what the Spiritual Connectivists called ‘pure spirituality’.

Both of these groups had significant social and religious effects on Kpreti during the late medieval period, but they were relatively distant from the other Anti-Stratifist Movements.

# Who Was Sehrang Vinsarl?

Sehrang Vinsarl was the matriarch of the Vinsarl family during the time of the Guild Crisis, and the head manager of the Bank of the Republic. Sehrang Vinsarl was sixty-two when the Guild Crisis occurred.

Sehrang was sixteen when she joined the Bank of the Republic, and twenty-five when she became a manager. It took her a further five years to become the head manager, and at thirty-seven she became the matriarch of her family.

As the head manager, her business policies were focused on two goals: one was increasing the power and profits of the bank, the other was increasing her family’s power. By increasing the bank’s influence, she was able to ensure that members of her family were able to attain positions of power in the Republic, which allowed her to exert more influence on behalf of the bank to gain more power for the bank.

When she was forty-eight, she took on Ulvonn Vinsarl as an apprentice, as she did with many members of her family when they reached apprenticeship age.

Ulvonn Vinsarl used Sehrang’s influence to push through the Statist tax plan.

Sehrang was firmly a member of the administrative class, and embodied many of the attributes of it that were criticised by the Anti-Administrative Movements.

# Who Was Senjisk Nak?

Senjisk Nak had become the leader of the Guilds’ Union as a result of the Guild Crisis.

Before the Guild Crisis, Senjisk was a vintner. Under the statist tax plan, they found themselves unable to afford the same quality of thanesroot leaves as before, which would have forced them out of business. Senjisk took it up with the Vintners’ Guild, which led to said Guild joining the Guilds’ Union’s rejection of the tax plan.

After the previous Union Leader was revealed to have been blackmailed by Ulvonn Vinsarl, he was dismissed and replaced by Senjisk – they were, after all, one of the more vocal members of the Guilds’ Union.

As a Union Leader, they campaigned for more power to be given to the individual Guilds, the structure of the Guilds’ Union to be reformed, and the statists’ and administratives’ interference in the Guilds’ affairs to end.

Senjisk Nak was seen as a threat by many of the administrative class, which led to their attempted assassination at a Guilds’ Union rally one year after the end of the Guild Crisis. The assassin was captured and confessed to having been hired by Sehrang Vinsarl.

Understandably, this caused a scandal.


	9. The Stratifist Crisis, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter with narrative sections. Let me know what you think - should I keep them or lose them?

# The Start of the Riots

Senjisk Nak was leading a demonstration against bribery committed by the Bank of the Republic when they were shot in the chest from a crossbow. The assassin was seized by the crowd, and beaten half to death, before being apprehended by the militia. Fortunately, Senjisk Nak survived the attempted assassination. Three days later, the assassin confessed before the First Court to having been hired by the matriarch Sehrang Vinsarl to commit the assassination.

Vinsarl denied those accusations, but that did not stop the protesters from suspecting her. Without the presence of the still hospitalised Senjisk, there was no one who could calm the growing tensions. When the First Court announced it was dropping the investigation, riots erupted.

### 11 Rondmena, 316 rana-Suthlekang

The glass windows of the First Court shattered as the crowd outside threw an assortment of projectiles at them. Some threw clay bricks, others threw metal tools, others still simply threw stones. Standing on a podium, so that he overlooked the crowd, Varsaji Amexu spurred them on.

“It has been five days since the leader of the Guilds’ Union, Senjisk Nak, was assaulted by an assassin hired by Sehrang Vinsarl!” he shouted. “An administrative! And then the First Court had the gall to refuse to investigate. It is a conspiracy to silence us! But we are _not_ silenced!”

The crowd roared in agreement.

This wasn’t a protest like the ones that had happened up to this point. This wasn’t a peaceful demonstration, an act of civil disobedience or uncivil obedience. This, as the judges - who were spotted by the crowd while trying to escape – learned, was a riot.

# The Military Intervention

That wasn’t the first of the riots, and it wouldn’t be the last. Varsaji Amexu would in later years become known as the founder of the Revolutionary Movement, as he encouraged more violent resistance and the total abolition of the administrative class. These riots were the start of Amexu’s rise to prominence.

As the riots continued over the next two days, the militia was sent in to subdue the rioters. A standoff in the morning turned into a prolonged melee, during which many of the protesters were killed.

The next day, Inrid Bessvala suggested a different tactic.

### 14 Rondmena, 316 rana-Suthlekang

“So you think we can just talk this out?” Varsaji scoffed. “How many innocent turians have died because of the militia in the past two days?”

Inrid nodded, conceding the point. “I never agreed with making it a standoff. I wanted to negotiate from the start.”

“Well, now we are,” Varsaji said. “So what do you have to offer us?”

“Justice _should_ be done, and the First Court was wrong to refuse to investigate what happened to Senjisk, especially since Sehrang Vinsarl was implicated in the attack.”

“She _ordered_ the attack,” Versaji corrected.

“Perhaps. If the First Court doesn’t look into it, we’ll never know. So perhaps we can come to an agreement: the First Court will admit to their mistakes and resume the investigation, with oversight from the militia.”

“I’d prefer for the Guilds’ Union to supervise the investigation, not a group of soldiers.”

“I understand. You trust your own more than you trust us. But if it _was_ the Guilds’ Union supervising, and it turned out that Sehrang _was_ guilty after all, she could easily have the charges dismissed on account of the Union being biased against her. With the militia… she can’t do that. At least, not as easily.”

“And if I accept your offer?” Versaji asked. “What concessions will you ask of us?”

“Just two: first, an end to the riots; second, for you to apologize for the damage suffered by the First Court as a result of the riots you led.”

Versaji growled. “We are not the guilty party in this. If I apologize, I might as well testify against my own followers.”

“I’m aware of that,” Inrid said. “But I know people, and I know that while you are an honourable turian fighting for a just cause, the First Court are arrogant and greedy. They won’t accept a deal like this unless they have an apology from you, to soothe their wounded pride.”

The two turians stared at each other in silence.

“Then we have a deal,” Versaji said at last. “I accept your offer.”

# The Aftermath of the Riots

The public view of the Anti-Administrative Movements soured as a result of the riots: where before, the people of Kpreti had been sympathetic to the movements and saw them as brave and heroic for opposing a corrupt elite, a growing contingent of the public now saw the movement as needlessly violent instead.

Versaji’s more violent version of the Anti-Stratifist Movement clashed with Senjisk’s peaceful blend of the Anti-Vatlonje and Anti-Stratifist Movements. This caused a schism within the Anti-Administrative Movements, one that would eventually lead to the formation of the Revolutionary Movement.

The militia’s relationship with the Anti-Administrative Movements had changed: previously, it was non-existent, whereas now it was very real and unfortunately complicated; on the one hand, the melee between the militia and the protesters had left a persistent distrust between the two, the militia seeing the protesters as an excessively violent mob while the protesters saw the militia as brutal enforcers of stratification; on the other hand, Inrid Bessvala was making efforts to bridge the gap between the two by solving conflicts with negotiations, and had established a rapport of sorts with both Senjisk and Versaji.

As for the relationship between the Administrative Class and the Anti-Administrative Movements, that only worsened as a result of the riots: to put it concisely, they hated each other.

The Administrative Class was even more detested by the public than before: they weren’t just hedonistic aristocrats who were willing to rig Office meetings in their favour, they were hedonistic aristocrats who were willing to pay to have a political opponent – for that was, in essence, what Senjisk was to them – and cover it up afterwards. On the other hand, some members of the public fully believed in Stratification Theory and argued that the Administrative Class had a right to take such actions because they belonged to a higher stratum than the Guilds did.

The militia was no longer trusted by the Administrative Class. They sent soldiers to put down the riots, and instead the militia made a deal with the protesters. Admittedly, they did kill a fair amount of protesters during the brief combat that ensued, but the combat was too brief and the casualties were too few. The Administrative Class wanted the protesters _gone_ , not temporarily pacified, and they no longer had faith in the militia to provide them with a guilt-free way of achieving that goal. Fortunately, the militia had no interest in being used to kill off opposition, and was beginning to rapidly lose respect for the Administrative Class for trying to use them for exactly that purpose.


	10. The Stratifist Crisis, Part 3

# The Effects of the Anti-Vatlonje Movement

One of the major effects of the Anti-Vatlonje Movement was that many First Court investigations into corruption in the Administrative Class – which before would have been ignored, the investigations stopping before they began – were able to not only get fully underway but produce tangible evidence. When First Court judges ignored that evidence and declared the accused innocent, the public outcry led to those judges being forced to step down. Nobody wanted more riots, after all – not when the militia was more likely to negotiate with the rioters than make a genuine effort to put them down.

One of the many investigations going on at the time was the investigation of the attempted assassination of Senjisk Nak. Although the First Court was _carrying out_ the investigation, it was Inrid Bessvala supervising them. The assassin had accused Sehrang Vinsarl of paying him to kill the Union Leader, and as the First Court investigated Sehrang knew they were closing in on her. In an attempt to evade justice, Sehrang gave a copy of the contract she’d made with the assassin to her protégé, Ulvonn Vinsarl.

### 21 Rondmena, 316 rana-Suthlekang

“Why would she give you this?” Inrid Bessvala asked.

“Matriarch Sehrang fears having to suffer the consequences of her actions,” Ulvonn said, “but she _is_ cunning. She probably thought that by giving me a copy of the contract, she’d make me an accomplice to her crimes. If the First Court found evidence against her, I would have to suppress it or share in her fate.”

“And instead you betrayed your family’s matriarch and handed me all the evidence I need to have her arrested,” Inrid summarised. “Why?”

“She tried to use me as a pawn. I understand manipulation, but I am _nobody’s_ pawn and I will _not_ be manipulated by people who are supposed to be on my side.”

“So that’s what this is about. Pride.”

“Reputation,” Ulvonn corrected Inrid. “If I did what she wanted me to do, do you really think people wouldn’t suspect me? I’m already distrusted because of the tax plan, and I intend on still having a career in politics when this is over.”

“Well, your motivations don’t matter all that much,” Inrid said. “You’ve been a great help to my investigation and I thank you for that.”

Of course, they both knew that when Sehrang Vinsarl was arrested, she would be stripped of the title of matriarch. Normally, that title would fall to the next eldest member of the family, but in situations where the matriarch had a protégé within the family, it was that protégé who became the next matriarch.

Which in this case meant Ulvonn.


	11. The Stratifist Crisis, Part 4

# What was the First Official?

The First Official was a person elected from the bodies of government by a popular vote. This person had the ability to declare new laws without the need for approval from the other Offices, and controlled the membership of the Offices. However, the First Official remained accountable to the other branches of the government and would also have certain responsibilities to fulfil, or be forced to resign.

Initially, the First Official was only intended to exist during times of crisis, but the position ended up becoming permanent. The creation of the position of “First Official” is widely believed to have been the death blow to the Office system of government, and eventually the reason for the end of the Republic.

# Why did Ulvonn Vinsarl propose the idea of the First Official?

In the aftermath of the Stratifist Crisis – the riots and subsequent arrests caused by the clashes between the Anti-Vatlonje Movement and the Administrative Class – Kpreti was on a knife edge. The main danger was that the riots would be re-ignited the next time a member of the administrative class crossed a line and wasn’t punished for it. Ulvonn Vinsarl gave this as her rationale for proposing the idea of a First Official: this person would be able to implement new laws to prevent or end a crisis without the need for the Offices to debate and vote on those laws.

Of course, more cynical historians suspect that Ulvonn wanted to be the one in charge herself so that she could protect herself from any repercussions of her actions, but her journals suggest that she was genuinely trying to protect Kpreti.

On 3 Hanmena that year, Ulvonn’s proposal passed and the position of the First Official was created. Ulvonn ran for First Official, but so did Vendharxa Khalsatfir – and she was unsurprisingly popular among the people. The election occurred twenty days later, lasting two days. It took another day to count the votes, at which point it was announced that Vendharxa was the victor and the first person to hold the position of First Official.

## 3 Hanmena, 316 rana-Suthlekang

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” Ulvonn said. “You now have more power than any other individual in this city. But that was always your intention, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean by that?” Vendharxa feigned puzzlement.

“What I mean is that I think you planned for something like this to happen. I know that Iventsinjie got the idea for his play from the transcripts of the tax plan debate, and it’s not difficult to deduce that _you_ left them at the Academy, hoping they’d find their way to someone important. After all, I’ve always suspected you were part of the Society of the Quill during our Academy days.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Vendharxa said. “But how would that mean I planned _this_?”

“I’m getting to that,” Ulvonn said. “You knew that whatever those transcripts led to, one of the Offices would try to censor it, and that if the First Court got the chance to investigate the author for libel, my actions would be exposed. You doubtless also knew that people would start to suspect what I’d done if I stopped the investigation. After that, no matter what happened, the play would have spread like wildfire: if it hadn’t been forced into taverns where the audience was more receptive to the message, it wouldn’t have been censored at all – I’d have been exposed and the scandal would make suppressing the play impossible. Either way, the sentiment it spread would have contributed to the downfall of the tax plan, presumably at the hands of the Guilds, and they wouldn’t have stopped at that.”

“You’re suggesting that I intentionally manufactured not just one crisis but two – and we both know that’s what they were, even if nobody’s calling them that yet – just to gain political power and sabotage my greatest rival?” Vendharxa questioned.

“You’re not denying it,” Ulvonn pointed out. “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t committed transgressions of similar magnitude. And I know you well enough to know that we both want what’s best for Kpreti, even if we disagree on what exactly that means. So what will you do to save it?”

“You’ll see,” Vendharxa promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for the Stratifist Crisis Arc. I'm a day late posting this, and I'm sorry about that. The next chapter will be up on Sunday, when it's supposed to be.  
> So, what do you think of the ending? Let me know in the comments below


	12. Thanesroot and Genetics

# The Uses of Thanesroot

Thanesroot is a Palaven plant known for its curved leaves, which have a taste similar to grapes. This is no coincidence, as thanesroot leaves are fermented to make the turian equivalent of wine. The roots and petals were also sometimes used.

Thanesroot was an especially popular plant in the Republic of Kpreti for the following reasons: first, healthy thanesroot leaves take a long time to rot, so they can be transported across vast distances; second, thanesroot required little more than soil and water to grow, so it could be grown in as small a space as a confined roof garden; third, they could be grown relatively quickly; and fourth, the wine was fantastic.

One thing that puzzled people about thanesroot for a long time was the way the colour of the petals was inherited. The petals could be red, purple, or yellow, and finding a way to predict how the next generation would turn out was a major goal of many natural philosophers. After all, there didn’t appear to be any pattern, but the results were easily observable and if the secret could be unravelled it may yield the key to inheritance itself.

# Who Was Vita Hezhlant?

Vita Hezhlant was a Kpretingje natural philosopher who was known for his studies of plants and pioneering work in the field of botany – Hezhlant is often called the Father of Botany – including the discovery of what he called “inheritance mechanisms” (what human scientists call genetics).

Hezhlant entered the Academy at sixteen and studied philosophy and horticulture for the four years it took to graduate, then chose to continue his studies. He was eighteen when he met Naklu Iventsinje in philosophy class. The two had radically different perspectives on philosophy: Vita believed in empiricism and the scientific method, while Naklu preferred abstract reasoning. They were also interested in different areas of philosophy: Vita wanted to understand the natural world, while Naklu wanted to understand society.

But their passions for philosophy were equal in magnitude, and became the foundation of their relationship. When they were both twenty years old, Vita and Naklu married.

Vita began his work on inheritance in thanesroot plants at twenty-six and published his results at twenty-seven. Those results contradicted the consensus at the time that each trait corresponded to “elements” and the proportions in which those elements mixed determined how the traits would turn out.

# An Excerpt from Hezhlant’s study of Thanesroot

_Before I could perform the experiment, I had to ensure that I had only ‘purebred’ thanesroot plants – I bred red thanesroot plants with red thanesroot plants and yellow thanesroot plants with yellow thanesroot plants, eliminating any offspring that did not match their parents in colour, until for three consecutive generations only offspring that matched their parents were produced. At that point, I could confidently assumed that I had succeeded in this and was able to begin my experiment._

_The first generation of thanesroot plants in my experiment were red and yellow in equal proportions, twelve plants for each. From this generation, eight of the yellow plants were bred with each other, eight of the red plants were bred with each other, and the remaining four yellow plants were bred with the remaining four red plants. This produced the following results: the yellow plants bred with each other produced offspring of the same colour, the red plants bred with each other produced red offspring, but the plants bred with plants of different colours all produced red offspring._

_I then divided this second generation into three groups: red purebred, yellow purebred, and mixed red. This time, I made sure to have sixteen of each group: eight of each were bred with themselves, four red purebreds were bred with four mixed reds, four yellow purebreds were bred with four mixed reds, and four red purebreds were bred with four yellow purebreds. The results of these were that the purebred plants of the same colours produced offspring of the same colour, the purebred plants of different colours produced red offspring, the mixed reds bred with red purebreds produced red offspring, but the mixed reds bred with yellow purebreds produced red and yellow offspring, as did the mixed reds bred with each other._

_I did this with four further generations in a similar fashion, the combinations of parents and the offspring produced illustrated in the tables on the following pages._

_The conclusion I drew from these results was that inheritance was determined not by the proportions of the traits in the parents, but by a relationship between the components that determined the trait. The red component appears to be expressed over the yellow component – that is, when the two components appear together in a single plant, the plant will be red and not yellow. It also appears that each plant possesses two such components for the colour of its petals, and passes on one of those components, selected randomly, to its offspring._

# The Ramifications of Hezhlant’s Discovery of Genetics

Vita Hezhlant’s discovery of genetic inheritance – or, as he called it, the Component Model – irreversibly changed how natural philosophers thought about botany, and once the model was proven to also apply to animals, about biology itself. This discovery was one of the main reasons why the history of genetics and the history of botany are almost synonymous on Palaven today: the two essentially began with the same person, after all.

Vita’s discovery also had ramifications of a different sort: this knowledge of how inheritance worked could be applied. Gardeners were able to breed their plants together in a way more likely to produce the desired result, allowing for whole new varieties to be created. This in turn caused a boom in gardening as an artisan industry, briefly becoming one of the most prosperous fields of work in the peninsula. Many of the most important discoveries in the history of biology on Palaven were made by gardeners, including the discoveries of antibiotics and of natural selection.

But those events only really got underway decades after Vita Hezhlant became famous for his discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think of this chapter? It's kind of filler and doesn't have any narrative sections, but it does provide more worldbuilding and it could be relevant in future chapters. Also, as you can tell I'm trying out different... is formats the right word?.. for these chapters. I like this one better than last chapter's.  
> The next chapter will deal with Vendharxa's actions after becoming the First Official, and I'll be posting it on Thursday 21st June.


	13. The Rise of Vendharxa Khalsatfir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read on, I just want to make one thing clear: I am vehemently pro-democracy. I believe that democracy is the best way to keep a government accountable to the governed and I don't see myself ever accepting a government that doesn't at least have free democratic elections.  
> However, the point of this story is to imagine how the Turian Hierarchy came about. The Hierarchy is not a democracy, it is a stratocracy, but I find it unfeasible that democracy would never have occurred on Palaven. Which means that it did occur, but either the democracies were defeated by the predecessor of the Hierarchy or that the predecessor of the Hierarchy arose from the ashes of a failed attempt AT democracy. What happens in this chapter isn't supposed to promote authoritarianism, but since I'm telling the origin story of what is canonically a military government, there's only so many routes I can take.  
> With that disclaimer done, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

# Vendharxa’s restructuring of the bureaucracy

Upon becoming the First Official, Vendharxa Khalsatfir set about restructuring the bureaucracy that made up the government of Kpreti. As she saw it, there were three primary issues affecting the government of the Republic: the first was the influence enjoyed by the Bank and the Priesthood, the second was the lack of influence given to the Guilds’ Union, and the third was the impracticality of the Office system.

To solve the first problem, she cut the Priesthood out of the government – it still existed, but it had no say in how the city was actually run – and limited the power of the Bank so that bankers wouldn’t be able to simply pay for the laws they wanted to be passed. Both of these moves were welcomed by the majority of Kpreti’s population, but hated by the administrative class, which further cemented the image of Vendharxa as a representative of the people. However, what must be taken into account is that the Bank and the Priesthood were both already under the control of powerful members of the administrative class who hated Vendharxa, and these actions limited the threat they’d be able to pose to her.

Vendharxa solved the second problem by making the Guilds’ Union into a branch of government, giving them much more power than they had before, and the ability to take direct action if demonstrations failed. This also got the Guilds and the workers they represented even more firmly on Vendharxa’s side in matters of politics while also giving her staunchest supporters more power in government.

Both of these solutions simultaneously fixed the problem they were supposedly intended to fix _and_ made Vendharxa more powerful politically. The third action Vendharxa took was somewhat different: she dissolved the Offices, replacing each one with an Advisor to the First Official on whichever aspect of Kpreti’s society that Office had been entrusted with. Admittedly, the position of First Official made the Offices pointless just by existing, but this action remains controversial to this day. On the one hand, Vendharxa ended the most prominent branch of government and gave herself all of their power, on the other that branch was already unnecessary and she _did_ promote government that represented the governed in all other branches of government.

Either way, it was only three days after this that Vendharxa made it clear that there was no going back with a symbolic act that would resonate throughout Kpreti’s history.

### 27 Hanmena, 316 rana-Suthlekang

The buildings of the Offices had been vacated, and now seemed more hollow and soulless than ever before. The buildings, despite the substantial amount of marble, were in fact mostly wooden. That wood was now exposed, marble tiles ripped away. The glass windows were shattered, shards of glass strewn across the floor. The buildings were essentially dead.

Vendharxa stood in front of the buildings, a flaming torch in her hand as she faced the crowd that had gathered to watch.

“The Offices were once the pride of Kpreti,” she said, “but now they are little more than its shame. They are ruled by individual agendas, not the welfare of the people. But today, that ends! Today, we begin anew!”

With that, she thrust her torch into the air. Responding to her signal, several archers perched on the surrounding buildings fired flaming arrows into the Offices.

The flames caught, and rose, and the crowd cheered.

# The Imperial Senator for Kpreti

After the Burning of the Offices, Vendharxa moved on to Kpreti’s relationship to the rest of the Empire. At the time, the Imperial Senator for Kpreti had been a relative non-factor in domestic politics, someone who only had that title to their name – unimpressive to both Kpreti _and_ the Senate. Vendharxa changed that when she issued a new law that stated that the title of Imperial Senator for Kpreti would from that point fall to the Field Marshall of the militia. The position of Field Marshall had been recently vacated, and Vendharxa ‘recommended’ her foster brother and the now-renowned negotiator, Inrid Bessvala, as the next Field Marshall.

Unsurprisingly, he got the job.


End file.
